Abertay University BA (Hons)

Additional Future Task: Christmas Holiday

Binaural Mixing

My original idea was utilising a 5.1 surround sound set-up for my soundscape within the Hive facility, as I had experience recorded and mixed in 5.1 whilst doing my HND at Edinburgh college. I was unsure whether the Hive houses this kind of set-up so I asked one of my lecturer, after a brief discussion with one of my lecturer – Christos Michalakos, he had advised that using headphones in a binaural mix would make the experience much more immersive.

Subsequently later that day, I had watched a few videos of binaural mix on Youtube and were surprised how well the audio localisation was. The first video (below) I had seen was called ‘Hear New York in 3D audio’ by The Verge.

This video explains what binaural audio is and briefly explains how the binaural recordings work. This video has subsequently led me straight to this next video – ‘Virtual Barber Shop’.

As I intend on using a master binaural mix for my soundscape, research into binaural mixing are definitely required as I have no previous experience of this nature. The following links contain information in regards to surround mixing software and techniques.

The first video which shows how binaural audio is recorded, by using a pair of prosthetic ear with a microphones implanted within the ears. This effectively captures audio just like how we do in the real world. I could possibly create my own binaural head piece by assembling the parts myself and see effective it is but this is something I need to look into at a more detailed manner and research are obviously required.